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Messages - RobJN

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16
Author Craft / Re: Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....
« on: January 12, 2010, 08:53:26 PM »
As an overview, it works to grab my attention. However, I'm reminded of the "crawl" text in the Star Wars movies-- more telling the story than showing. I'd much rather learn those details over the course of the story than have it fed to me in two paragraphs in the Prologue. You could go a lot of different ways with this: does the tale open in present day Earth? Or perhaps during a certain period (Wild West? Victorian England?). Certainly would give the return of Magick moer "oomph" if we're not directly expecting it.

More thoughts when I get back home...!

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Author Craft / Re: Word Count!
« on: January 05, 2010, 02:38:07 AM »
Quote from: meg_evonne on January 05, 2010, 02:28:11 AM

That's a whopping 148918 and I'll take great pride in that. 

W00t!

Congratulations, meg, and EVERYONE who's replied in the thread. I counted unreleased sections in Green-5, but didn't count the files I keep for each work which I call the "Cutting Room Floor." Partial ideas, false starts, places where a scene branches, and then the "unused" portions thereof.... I hang on to most of it.

Now, if I could just have a nickel for every time I hit the "delete" key.... (no crusty ol' black ones possessed by demons, please!)

Speaking of which....

Quote
(And no, you can't read my Demon Porn!)


I never get to have any fun! :P

Here's to another year full of word after word, page after page, whether for fun or for future publication. (wait, are those two things mutually exclusive...?)

18
Author Craft / Re: Word Count!
« on: January 01, 2010, 12:10:53 AM »
Quote from: Blaze on December 31, 2009, 11:53:15 PM
Hey!  I post poetry to the message boards...  so I think that should count.  LOL.

Very well, we'll make exceptions for poetry :-)

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Author Craft / Word Count!
« on: December 31, 2009, 09:35:50 PM »
All right, from New Year to New Year's Eve, how many words have ya'll written, amongst anything you consider a "writing project" be it that Great American Novel™, your dissertation on World Peace, or... you know, boring school papers?

* Message board posts don't count! :-P

I was tallying for a blurb on Facebook, just to put something up for "What I Accomplished This Year," and was amazed when I got close to 250,000. Wow. I guess writing every day (or at least TRYING to) really does help.

Untitled (Jack and Beth's story): 106,000
Project Green-5: 62,000
Thorn's Chronicle: 75,120

Let's see if I can keep the momentum going into the new year.....

20
Author Craft / Re: Tools for Writers
« on: December 30, 2009, 09:55:58 PM »
Quote from: Murphy's Stunt Double on December 30, 2009, 08:02:08 PM
I like it!

I'm thinking of trying the suggestions in Jim's blog, but I wonder if there's other suggestions you all might have for me?
Linkage to this?

21
Author Craft / Re: Tools for Writers
« on: December 24, 2009, 11:10:27 PM »
Quote from: Mickey Finn on December 21, 2009, 03:15:29 PM
Mac users apparently have something else that's extremely kickass but will never be made for PC.

That might be Scrivener: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html


That's it! - Mickey

22
Author Craft / Re: My writing needs help
« on: December 21, 2009, 10:04:30 PM »
Heh. Actually, i was thinking something more along the lines of the princess saying "Thanks for waking me back up!" smiting him with some lightning or fire or some such, and then riding off on her broomstick to go back to enslaving the world.....

23
Author Craft / Re: My writing needs help
« on: December 21, 2009, 08:20:25 PM »
Prince finds the princess, kisses her, she wakes up, they live happily ever after.

Doesn't make for much of a story, does it? So add some obstacles. Some side characters. Some back story.

The princess sleeps in a tall tower, guarded by a dragon, on an island in the middle of a lake of fire.

The prince is accompanied by his faithful squire, who has a weakness for ale and women. And there are a lot of taverns between the prince's castle and the lake of fire.

Why is the princess asleep? Who put her in the tower? How did they get the dragon to agree to guard that tower for all eternity?

It's great that you can lay out the whole plot in one go. Now just start adding layers between points A and B.

24
Author Craft / Re: My writing needs help
« on: December 21, 2009, 07:05:59 PM »
Quote from: Blaze on December 19, 2009, 04:09:01 AM
Even as a kid I could never find that brevity which is the soul of wit. 

You learn that in Journalism classes.

My lit teacher hated my papers because they were so short. Yet I'd made my points, supported them, and wrapped it all up in a nice, cuddly conclusion.

25
Author Craft / Re: Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....
« on: December 19, 2009, 11:33:54 PM »
Quote from: meg_evonne on December 19, 2009, 09:02:52 PM
Yes, nasty in the G** D*** it, now I keelll to read more. 

Muah ha ha... all part of my Evil Plan™

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Author Craft / Re: Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....
« on: December 19, 2009, 04:34:15 AM »
Quote from: meg_evonne on December 19, 2009, 03:49:24 AM
interesting and sort of nasty this time.  last time was cute but your fantasy piece left me with too many questions.  What happened the last time?  Why doesn't she have a means of communicating?  Sounds like she's been there a bit.  Lots of good reader type questions, so again---nice! 

That snippet is actually from the chronicle's "day 2." And your questions get slowly answered as the tale unfolds. I hope the 'nasty' you refer to is a 'darnit, now I have to keep reading' kind of nasty :-D

I know you're busy with your own writing, but if you want the rest of this, PM me. 

27
Author Craft / Re: Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....
« on: December 18, 2009, 07:51:47 PM »
Combining action and dialogue -- I think I need to work a bit on that, yes.

Quote from: meg_evonne on December 18, 2009, 07:38:19 PM
Hooked, oh yeah!
Voices, wonderful.  Distinct (and cute) enough that I had no difficulty with knowing who is speaking when.

Really cute and engaging, lively characters that I'd love to spend more time with!

Got 120 posts on the blog... Is that enough time with 'em?  ;D

28
Author Craft / Re: Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....
« on: December 18, 2009, 03:49:16 PM »
Here's a bit from the fantasy thing I pick away at on another message board:

Quote from: Thorn's Chronicle
She regarded us with wide-eyed curiosity as she sat with her knees drawn up before her, the cloak arranged about her thin shoulders. She held a steaming cup of Durin’s tea, sipping occasionally, but did not eat from the trencher before her.

We’d all tried greeting her, but she simply blinked quizzically at each of us, shaking her head to indicate that she did not understand. Ana tried Old Alphatian to no avail, and similar successes were met with my Old Traladaran and Gilliam’s scraps of Alaysian. We even tried scratching letters in the dirt but these she frowned upon and rubbed out with her feet in frustration.

“We tried to put hose and boots on her,” Durin said, when Old Seth wondered about her bare feet. “You’re more than welcome to try yourself, if you don’t mind a foot in the eye.”

“Can’t get her to wear anything but a simple white gown,” said Kuric. “She won’t have anything with any color in it against her skin. Stripped it right off and ran about the room in a panic,” he added with a chortle, then blushed.

As we spoke, I watched the girl. She watched us intently, her eyes going to whomever was speaking. Occasionally, her brow would furrow, but then she would shrug and take a sip of tea and go back to watching.

“Why are her lower arms bound?” asked Gilliam, spying the wrappings beneath her sleeve.

Durin and Kuric stared at each other for a long moment.

The girl, though, saw Gilliam’s gesture, and had followed his glance. She held out her arm to Kuric. She pulled up her sleeve, and pointed to the complex knot -- it was obvious she would not be able to untie it with one hand.

Kuric patted her arm and shook his head. The girl glanced from the dwarf to the man, shrugging at Gilliam. She then drew her sleeve back down and tucked the cloak all the way about herself.

“Bad things happened the last time her arms were uncovered,” Kuric said. “Very bad things.”

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Author Craft / Re: Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....
« on: December 17, 2009, 01:39:44 AM »
Okay, so it's a bit more than 250 words.  :-\ You all remember Jack and Beth from my earlier contribution? Beth has fallen asleep on the couch at Jack's house, after a very long Halloween night*, and the next morning, has some difficulty waking up. So his younger sister, Ellie, provides a solution, egged on by the other two, older sisters, Hannah and Charlotte.

In addition to "hooking," I'm also looking at how well (or not) I'm doing at individualizing the different voices in the scene's dialogue. I welcome any tips or tricks ya'll might have for scenes with a lot of participants. (The Thanksgiving scenes around the table took I don't know how many rewrites...!)

Quote
“When the byoo-tee-ful princess won’t wake up, then Prince Charming has to give her a kiss,” Ellie said, matter of factly.

“I’m not going to kiss her!” Jack said.

“Nothing else seems to work,” Hannah said. “As strange as things are around that girl, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it actually worked.”

“I’m not— No!” Jack said, standing up from where he’d been kneeling by the sofa.

Jack’s mother set two plates on the table.

“What’s all the fuss now?” she asked. “Is she still not up yet? I don’t know that I have any adrenaline in my medical kit.”

“Mom, she hates needles.”

“Well, we seem to be running out of options.”

“I made an option!” Ellie said. “Prince Charming has to kiss Sleeping Byoo-tee!”

“Well, make it quick,” said Jack’s mother. “Breakfast is getting cold.”

“Mom! I can’t just—”

“Wait, let me go get my camera!” Hannah bolted for the stairs.

Jack took a deep breath.

“Okay, well, you don’t all have to watch.”

“Wait!” came Hannah’s cry from upstairs.

Jack knelt down again. Shook Beth’s shoulder. Deep breathing, a whispered word under her breath, but not so much as a flutter of an eyelid.

He brushed a lock of hair from her cheek.

He leaned over, heart hammering, kissed her forehead. It was cool, smooth under his lips.

Nothing. Not so much as a wiggle of her nose or a flicker of movement under her eyelids.

There was a bright flash and an electronic chirp from over his head.

“I’m just going to let her sleep here all day if you don’t all back off,” Jack growled.

“Hannah, dear, put the camera down and eat your breakfast.”

“Jack, you missed. You haveta kiss her on the mouth!”

“Lips,” corrected Hannah. “Mouth kissing is… something I’ll have to talk to you about when you’re older.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Charlotte.

* "How long was it?" you ask? Read the blog :-P

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Author Craft / Re: Okay new game: hooked or not hooked.....
« on: December 16, 2009, 11:53:21 PM »
Quote from: meg_evonne on December 16, 2009, 11:49:45 PM
I got a great re-write line where to tie the raven's treasure in.  Listen to this!  What a great re-write.  And why didn't I think of that?

"She landed on all fours, the raven's treasure spinning on the narrow walkway. It wasn't until it slowed and lay still, rocking gently, that she recognized it was an eyeball starring up at her."

Rocking gently....  oh my back is creepy crawling!

Yes! Better. But... wouldn't it rock gently, and then lay still, staring up at her?

I nit-pick, I know.... sorry! But yes -- good direction.

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